Fishing Create a Bond: Between Me and My Dad

Being a resident of Charleston, South Carolina, there are two things I can say for certain that this city lacks by no means what so ever. The first being humidity, and the second being water. Rivers, lakes, ocean, reservoirs, you name it and it’s here. I consider myself an extremely lucky girl for being able to experience life living so close to them all too.

Growing up, I automatically had, in my opinion, the only two things you need to become a fisherman, which include a boat and a dad who loves to fish. For as long as I can remember, fishing has been one of the many bonds that we share. In all of our photo albums, there are plenty of pictures of me not only holding, but kissing these little ‘me sized’ fish and an occasional picture of me struggling to hold a big one.

I started out with a small push button rod and a bobber, and I never wanted to move to anything else. Unfortunately, as you grow up, you’re expected to start using spinning rods and spnning real rigs, not bobbers, which believe it or not makes it a lot harder to tell if you actually have a fish on your line or not. You go from the excited idea that you’ve got one to realizing that you’re just stuck on a tree again or dragging your worm across the bottom. The bobber’s sudden disappearance was a much more reliable method, but I enjoy the unpredictability and the challenge of the ‘grown’ way that I have adapted to.

When I was little my dad had to cast for me and that may or may not still happen, but let’s just say that I might forget to flip the bail sometimes and ‘cast’ my worm two feet in front of me. I will just continue to pretend that it’s a ploy to get some laughs, strictly comical purposes. I said that I liked to fish, not that I was good at it. Besides remembering to flip the bail, the other lesson that my dad has taught me is that when you’re fishing and you are sure that you have one on the line there is a three-step process.

Step one

Let the fish pull a little bit without putting too much tension on the line to make sure that he is there.

Step two

Quickly pull your rod back, point it toward the sky and start reeling. Step three, yell ‘SON!’ pretty loudly so that everyone around knows that you’re a fishing master.

Step three

This step is a real commitment though, and you better be sure that you’ve got one beforehand because it’s kind of embarrassing to have yelled ‘son’ five times and only have one fish in the live well.

The other thing that I haven’t really mastered is netting the big ones that my dad catches quick enough. One time he gave me an ‘award’ he named after someone from his younger days who made him lose a big one because he went to slow and it broke the line because, as you’d probably guess, I did that very same thing. If you can’t tell by now, I’ll let you know, I am the greatest fishing pro that there is.

Okay, but really, I am not the best, but I have fun. I am not at all a morning person, but something gets me up at five in the morning to go fishing with my dad, and still at eighteen years old you can catch me kissing the fish as the sun rises behind me. It’s the bond that fishing has created between us. That is the best part.